Alibaba ramps up AI plans, share spark

(Sharecast News) - Shares in China's Alibaba sparked on Tuesday after the tech giant outlined plans to further bolster its artificial intelligence offering. Alibaba used its cloud division's annual three-day Apsara conference to confirm it was increasing its data centre footprint. Chief executive Eddie Wu told attendees: "Our target is that by 2032, the global data centre capacity operated by Alibaba cloud will surpass 20GW, fuelling the industry's exponentially rising demand for AI."

The company also introduced its next generation AI chip, the Zhenwu V900, which it claimed could deliver three times the performance of its predecessor, the M890, which was released in May. The chip will compete directly with American AI giant Nvidia.

Alibaba chair Joe Tsai said: "Over the past few years, AI has continuously expanded our imagination of technological capabilities. AI possesses vast potential for development - it can be deployed and scaled in real-world scenarios, boosting productivity across thousands of industries."

Alibaba is one of China's biggest spenders on AI. It has so far committed to spend more than $53bn on the technology over a three-year period, according to Bloomberg.

The Hong Kong-listed stock initially jumped 3%, before paring back gains slightly to close up 2%.